In this morning’s news, Best Buy and other corporations announced that they are joining a growing list of corporations pulling out of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ).  The corporations are doing so because they were worried about their valuable brands getting muddied from fallout due to ALEC’s aggressive advocacy of “stand your ground” gun laws, such as the one at the center of the tragic Trayvon Martin murder case in Florida.

Best Buy’s decision is smart brand management.  Goodness knows, it has enough issues of its own to solve.  Best Buy doesn’t need to add to its woes by putting its  brand in the middle of the political knife fights over the most polarizing political issues of our times.

Which brings me to General Mills and its opposition to the marriage ban amendment that will be on Minnesota ballots in November. Continue reading →